Robert St. John: Restaurant business is true labor of love

11:46 PM,
Oct. 22, 2013

Written by

Robert St. John

Someone once told me, "You have to be a masochist to be in the restaurant business."

The guy who said it owned a small cafe for a brief stint and was holding a fire sale of his furniture, fixtures and equipment before heading into his next, more stable career - logging in the Great Northwest or crabbing in the Bering Sea or something far less dangerous, and more profitable, than owning a restaurant.

People hop in and out of this business all the time. They dive in with dreams, ideas and a pocketful of plans and usually limp out bruised and battered with empty pockets. That is why we get such a bad rap. But ...